In this chapter, you explore all the video functionality the iPhoto touch offers. The topics include the following:
</feature>Your iPod touch is a great way to enjoy different types of video, including movies, episodes of your favorite TV series, and video podcasts. Be prepared to be amazed; the high quality and portability more than make up for the relatively small screen size (well, relatively small in today’s world of 50-inch+ TVs!). Like music and other content, the first step is to find the video you want to watch. Then you use iPod touch’s video tools to watch that video. You can also configure some aspects of how your iPod touch plays video content.
Like listening to audio, watching video is a two-step process. First, find the content you want to watch. Second, select, play, and control playback.
If you read Chapter 5, “Listening to Music, Podcasts, and Other Audio,” you pretty much already know how to find video content on your iPod touch because this is quite similar to finding audio content.
On the Home screen, tap the Videos button. The Videos screen appears, showing you the video content on the iPod touch.
Scroll the screen to see all of the video content, which is organized by type, such as Movies, TV Shows, and Music Videos. Content you haven’t watched yet is marked with a blue dot. If you have multiple episodes of a TV series, you see the name of the series and the number of episodes.
To watch one of the episodes of a TV series of which more than one is stored on your iPod touch, tap the series. You see the episodes of the series that are available.
To watch a movie, an episode of a TV series, or a music video, tap it.
Rotate the iPod touch 90 degrees. The screen rotates, and the content begins to play.
Watch and control the video; see the next section for details of controlling video.
When you play video, it is always oriented in landscape mode so that it can fill the screen.
Tap the video you are watching. The video controls appear.
Drag the playhead to the right to move ahead or to the left to move backward.
Tap the Scale button to scale the video to fit the screen or to show it in its native scale. After a few seconds, the video controls disappear.
To change the language for a movie or TV show, tap the Language button. (Not all movies support this feature.)
Tap the language you want to use.
Tap Done.
To move to a specific chapter in the video, tap the Chapter button. (Not all video content supports this feature.) You move to the movie’s Chapter Guide.
Tap the chapter you want to watch or tap Done to to the video at the same location. You move back to the viewing screen, and the video plays.
When you’re done watching, tap Done. You move back to the Videos screen.
As you learned in Chapter 3, “Moving Audio, Video, and Photos onto an iPod touch,” you can rent movies from the iTunes Store and move them onto an iPod touch. The steps to watch a rented movie are the same as watching other kinds of video.
When you move to a rented movie, you see important time information about its viewing status and can play it.
On the Home screen, tap the Videos button.
Scroll to the top of the screen, where you see the Rented Movies section. Under each rented movie, you see the time remaining in the rental period (days if you haven’t watched the movie yet).
Tap the rented movie you want to watch. You’re prompted with a message that after you start the movie, you have 24 hours to watch it.
Tap OK. The movie starts to play.
Use the video controls to play the movie.
To stop the movie, tap Done. You move back to the Videos screen.
Note how much time you have left to watch the movie, shown in hours. When this period expires, the movie disappears from your iPod touch.
Like the audio podcasts you learned about in the previous chapter, video podcasts are episodic content, though as you can tell by their name these episodes contain both audio and video content. Another difference is that there are quite a number of podcasts that have only one episode. Watching a video podcast is similar to watching other kinds of video content.
On the Home screen, tap the Videos button. You move to the Videos screen.
Scroll down until you see the Podcasts section.
Tap the video podcast you want to watch. You move to the episode list for that podcast.
Scroll or search to find the episode you want to view.
Tap the episode you want to watch. You move to the viewing screen, and the episode begins to play.
Use the video controls to watch the episode.
There are a few settings you use to configure various aspects of iPod touch’s video functionality.
Tap the Home button to move to iPod touch’s Home screen.
Tap Settings. The Settings screen appears.
Tap Video. The Video screen appears.
Tap Where Left Off to have iPod touch remember where you last were watching in a video so it resumes at the same location when you play it again or From Beginning to have iPod touch always start video content playback from the beginning.
Tap Video to move back to the Video screen.
To enable or disable Closed Captioning on video, tap the Closed Captioning button. Its status is indicated by ON or OFF. When you tap the button, it toggles between the two states.
To enable or disable widescreen playback, tap the Widescreen button. Its status is indicated by ON or OFF. When you tap the button, it also toggles between the two states.
To select a specific output format, tap TV Signal.
To choose the NTSC format (for U.S. televisions for example), tap NTSC, or to choose the PAL format (European televisions are some that use this format), tap PAL.
Tap Video to return to the Video screen.
